November 2011

Building a Mandala Garden

Garden

After I started reading Toby Hemenway’s book, Gaia’s Garden, I decided I had to have a mandala garden. A mandala garden is a form of keyhole garden, which you may be more familiar with.  For those of you completely new to the concept, let me explain. A keyhole garden is a round garden bed with [...]

Read it →

Wild Flavors: Summer Rolls for Spring/Summer

Recipes

I made summer rolls from Didi Emmonds’ new book, Wild Flavors. It was an unassuming recipe and I didn’t have huge expectations because of its simplicity. But when I served it and we dug in, I kept saying to my husband, “This is really good, isn’t it?  Why is this so good?” It was so [...]

Read it →

The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown

Garden

It began with a phone call. My mom had just returned home from visiting one of my brothers, who lives on a farm in the country. “Your brother sent you something,” she said. “What is it?” I asked. There was a slight pause.  “You’ll just have to see it.  Come over and get it.” Now [...]

Read it →

Planting a Cover Crop

Garden

This is the tail end of the season to sow cover crops.  I planted the mandala garden in a mixed cover crop at the beginning of November, and a last ditch second crop on top of my hugelkultur bed last weekend. On top of all the reasons to grow cover crops, I have a secret [...]

Read it →

Building a Hugelkultur Bed

Beginner Gardens

First, of course, what in the world am I talking about? Hugelkultur (from the German, hill culture) is a method of building a garden bed.  It hails from the permaculture world and means building a bed either by piling up wood and branches on the surface of the soil or digging a hole (or trench) [...]

Read it →

← Previous Entries